


Darkened Night

by tatooedlaura



Series: Life, Part 2 [26]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 04:30:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12523008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: Hell existed in that room and he never wanted to go back ...





	Darkened Night

Hell existed in that room. The devil resided there, lingering in corners, filling crevices, cracks, shadowing air with evil, thick, heavy, palpable.

Mulder wanted to set the entire place on fire and walk away laughing.

Banging his head against the wall became secondary relief to arsonary evidence destruction. He wasn’t alone in the two-bedroom, unassuming apartment but he might as well have been, his mind buried so far in wanton annihilation that everything else disappeared. Skinner crossed his path every so often, leaving Mulder to stare at papers, journals – why the fuck did they always keep records of their rambling, Schizophrenic, fragmented psyche to taunt him – and that damn religious icon.

Cross, image, vestment, book, candle, verse … he may not believe in any god, be it little ‘g’ god or big ‘G’ God but he was damn certain that you didn’t show your love for your god/God by killing somebody else.

He seriously could have been a mousy professor in some dusty college who followed supernatural blogs and crawled into bed with his Scully every night, life unassuming, heart full, soul intact, ignorance bliss.

With a final bang to the dirty white walls, his forehead throbbed while he returned to shitty reality.

What the fuck was wrong with humanity?

&&&&&&&&&&

Scully showed up, Scully disappeared, Skinner passed, Collins talked, Scully reappeared, Mulder felt sunlight, squinted, fell asleep in the car. Hand cramped from writing, eyes blurry from reading, sirens loud, then quiet in his ears, Kevlar heavy, wind warm, gunfire earsplitting, blood red, skin soft, skin smooth.

“What day is it?”

“Saturday night.” Scully slid her hand across his back.

Harsh moments flooded his mind and sitting up, he began pawing at her, “are you okay? I remember blood. Are you hurt?” Moving his hands across her, he felt his own chest, face, shifted back to her, hands wrapping tightly around shoulders when he realized she wasn’t screaming in agony as he groped, “when did we find him?”

Her cool hand went to his forehead, heat calming with her touch, her other palm to his cheek, “you and Barton worked out two possible scenarios. The second was correct and there was gunfire but you’re fine. Barton and Collins took hits to the leg, shoulder and right flank but they’re alive and home. I bought you here Friday morning and you fell asleep.”

She hated his mind at times for doing this to him, overloading and overwhelming until he lost days but his next sentence still made her smile, “no wonder I have to pee so badly.” Twisting out of bed, he groaned and hunched, waiting until his muscles had enough control of his bladder to get moving without catastrophic consequences. Scully followed, to keep him upright if necessary but once he was standing in the bathroom, he shooed her away, “I don’t need shy bladder happening right now … I can taste the pee in the back of my throat.”

With a small chuckle she kept to herself, she rolled around the doorframe, out of sight but not out of sound. Once again, he passed the minute-mark like a champ, only stopping after a minute, 28. Quiet returned and Scully leaned around the jamb, “you completely destroyed your old record.”

He was standing at the sink now, head hanging, tired again, “yay me. I need some sleep.”

She came up beside him, rumpled but still breath-taking in his eyes, “go back to bed. I’ll go make you a sandwich. You haven’t had much since Monday.”

Taking her hand, he pulled her back to the bedroom, nearly running into the wall, mid-course correction bringing him within half an inch of plasterboard, “horizontal. Sleep. Company. You.”

“English. Useless. Food. Necessary. Five minutes. Max.”

“Blar. No mayo.”

Because sandwich making skills peaked at 11:17pm, she also whispered to Maggie, who had just gone to bed, that Mulder was awake before returning upstairs, roast beef sandwich in hand. “Eat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

First bite made him ravenous, second and third bite finished it off, Scully watching in concerned awe. If he didn’t choke, it would be amazing.

He did not.

She’d figured he’d go back to sleep but his eyes remained open, staring at the ceiling, hand making lazy circles, ovals, lopsided ellipses, some kind of absent-minded geometric shapes across her thigh until she broke the silence, “penny for your thoughts.”

His finger hesitated for a fraction, then continued its repetitive path, “I’m just listening to the quiet.”

“Enjoying?”

Now he wrapped the hand around her thigh, heat seeping into fingers, “I’m not sure. My head’s been so loud for a week that I think I like it but I don’t know.”

Making sure she didn’t twist his wrist too much, she turned on her side, trapping his hand, “would you like to talk or just listen to me trying to breathe through my slightly stuffy nose?”

Kissing her forehead, he wiggled his fingers just for fun, “how about you sing to me?”

“Elvis or Guns ‘n’ Roses?”

“You trying to kill me over here?”

“Just trying to make you happy.”

Removing his hand from her warmth, he turned to face her, fingers finding skin stretched over her spine, “you already do.”

“Do I still have to sing then?”

Now he laughed, chuckling into her forehead, “nope but maybe you can open the window so we can listen to the rain.”

“It’s raining?” Lifting her head, she could just make out the sounds, then slithering from his grasp to do as asked. Ten seconds later, she was back and both were lulled to half-asleep dreams by the steady rain on the kitchen window tin roof overhang.

He roused her awhile later, just as the first rumblings of thunder ambled across the sky, whispering into the pillow, sound asleep, “don’t make me go back.”

Fighting the urge to shake him awake, she twisted, sitting up quickly, hand on his shoulder blade, stroking the peak, “I won’t. You don’t have to go back at all.”

She noticed his hands fisted beneath the pillow and deciding her singular touch wasn’t enough, she swung her leg over his thighs, settling on his butt, massaging shoulders and coercing tense muscles with practiced digits, trying to make out his mumblings, “I don’t want to go back.”

“Mulder, you don’t have to go back.”

Suddenly he turned over, nearly tossing her off the bed. She held her ground, however, letting him finish his rotating while she held onto the mattress, sheets tangling into a nightmarish wad near her knees. Once he was facing her again, his eyes open this time, “what?”

Seeing he had absolutely no recollection of what he said, she leaned onto him, his arms automatic around her waist, “you don’t have to go back. Wherever ‘there’ is, you don’t have to go back.”

And he remembered.

Eyes closing instantly, “yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t. You caught the men. They cleaned out the room. It’s finished.”

Never more honest in his life, he finally met her confusion, “I meant the Bureau.”

&&&&&&&&&&&

He’d dropped his statement on her at 3:18am, then disappeared out the front door, running in the rain, walking in the rain, eventually coming home to sit quietly in the rain on the damp front porch while ignoring the world around him.

Scully stared at the ceiling once she realized he’d left the house. He’d quietly tossed that bomb at her, then excused himself for a drink of water. When the front door shut, she didn’t move to go after him, scooting to his rapidly cooling side of the bed to wait it out, her mind running in the circles she imagined Mulder’s body was under the thundering sky.

He didn’t want to go back to the FBI.

But like the good Mulder he was, regardless of emotional turmoil or highly developed escapism techniques, he let her know when he got home, opening the front door of the house with its telltale squeak but not coming in. He knew she was awake. She would find him when she was ready.

Scully sensed he was home almost a minute before the door told her so and swinging her legs to the floor, she moved her bare feet across the rug, across the hardwood, down the stairs and out the door, quietly taking her place beside him.

He’d grabbed his bag of sunflower seeds from the cupholder of the Jeep and cracking one, he handed her another, “I ditched you but I came home. Does that count for something?”

Hugging her knees to her chest, she stared across the street, “that was not a ditch, Mulder. That was an intriguing tidbit followed by alone time to be continued with thunderstorms and nervous habits.”

Nearly feeling like smiling, an impressive feat given the amount of guilt he felt, “I’m not supposed to do that anymore, though. I’m supposed to stay with you and talk this shit out, not run around during a lightning storm and keep you awake because I’m an idiot.”

Her hand snaked under his arm and hand gripped knee, “do you really want to leave the FBI?”

What the hell, if he couldn’t tell Scully, then there really wasn’t any point breathing, “I want to stop losing hours and days in rooms like that.” Dropping his head forward, he spoke to her hand, which, with astonishing clarity, he realized did not yet have an engagement ring on it, “I don’t remember the last four days at all. The last truly clear thing I can think of is you making me drink a glass of milk and the rest is just a jumbled fucking mess of death and anger and destruction and,” standing up suddenly, he moved down the step to tower in the drizzle, looking at her in the hazy yellow shine of the porch light,   
“I don’t want that anymore. I may be good at it but I can’t handle it. It scares me how easily I forgot about you and Maggie and the kids and … and us … I lose myself in that room and what if one day I can’t find my way back out?”

Looking up at him, neck angled to full extension, eyes sympathetic, mouth tightened to the thin line of concern, “I love you and I will not let you get lost in that room. I promise.” His shifting, his restlessness, his skittering glance and unattainable eye contact made her heart ache, realizing once again just how much they coexisted in the universe, “Mulder, I won’t think any less of you if you stop profiling. I won’t think you gave up and I won’t judge you for it.” Finally shifting to stand, she watched him approach, eye level given the porch made her taller, “I am scared every second you’re lost in someone’s head. I watch you in there and you turn into someone else … someone I don’t recognize and to be blunt about it, I hate it. My stomach is in knots until you come back to me, plain and simple.” Reaching her arms out slightly, she wiggled her fingers in the universal ‘get over here’ gesture and once he was within reach, she ran her hands from his forehead, down his cheeks and stopped to cradle his chin, whispering as she begged his soul through dilated green eyes, “you need to do what you need to do and trust me when I say, I love you no matter what.”

Muscles relaxing into her, hugging her tight, “but I’m not supposed to trust anyone, Scully.”

“I have never been just anyone, Mulder.”

With a wet chuckle into her neck, “I will talk to Skinner tomorrow at dinner.”

“Would you like me to be there?”

“Yes, please.”

And they stood, immobile and immeasurable, one shadow, one couple, one perfect blip on an imperfect night.


End file.
